Grainger County area

Population and density of Grainger County

The Census Bureau estimates that 25,739 people lived in Grainger County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,643 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #59 of 95 in Tennessee. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 23,532, the population has grown by 2,207 (+9.4%), compared with +5.8% for Tennessee as a whole.

With 280.6 square miles of land, that is 92 people per square mile (35 per km²), placing Grainger County #1,056 nationally for density and #40 in Tennessee. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Tennessee median is 76. Put another way, there are about 7 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Grainger County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Grainger County. Together they are home to 6,803 people (26.4%); the other 18,936 (73.6%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Bean Station city, with 3,180 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county). The county seat, Rutledge town, has 1,411 residents. By land, Blaine city is the largest at 9.516 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Bean Station city grew fastest since then (+7.9%).

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Grainger County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Grainger County is an outlying county of the Knoxville, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 9 county equivalents have 968,137 residents on 3,501 square miles of land; Grainger County accounts for 8% of the land and 2.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #81 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #61 by population. It belongs to the Knoxville-Morristown-Sevierville, TN Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Grainger County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

377083770937779378063781137848378613788137888

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Grainger County

Grainger County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Knox County (508.4 mi²) and the smallest is Hamblen County (161.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Grainger County forms a block of 2,592.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.8%.

How big is Grainger County compared with U.S. states?

Grainger County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.7 times as much. Tennessee’s county land could hold about 147 areas the size of Grainger County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 16.8 miles (27 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Grainger County?

Grainger County has more land than 375 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Grainger County at #2,844 nationally by total area, 3 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 7.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 6.1 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Grainger County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.